


Your bones as a shield

by greenglowsgold



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allusions to (but no descriptions of) torture, Gen, The mildly dysfunctional team-up that is the Arms of Voltron, Timeline: late season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21573409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenglowsgold/pseuds/greenglowsgold
Summary: Captured by the Galra, Pidge and Keith have to make the tough decisions, even if they don’t agree on what those should be.
Relationships: Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	Your bones as a shield

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hook-on-fandom](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=hook-on-fandom).



It’s a full three days after Keith comes out of his healing pod before Pidge is ready to leave hers, and he hates every minute of them. Four thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes. They give him too much time to think.

He sits on the edge of the cot that Shiro pulled out for him when he refused to leave the room, stares at Pidge’s still figure in the pod, and thinks: really, she’s always the one protecting them. She’s hacking into security systems and opening doors and warning them seconds before they get caught, but that, by default, puts her in the background, not the front lines. He’s used to her being the only thing between them and disaster, but not, you know. Not literally.

The shield isn’t even her bayard. They can all summon it. So why is it always on _her_ arm?

“I can hear you brooding,” Lance complains from the doorway, and moments later he’s bouncing onto the cot right next to Keith, because Lance has no concept of personal space or privacy. “Cut it out, you’re gonna wake her up early.”

“She’s supposed to get out in a few minutes anyway.” Eight minutes, not that he’s counting.

Lance waves him off. “You can’t rush these things, man. Just look at how _you_ came out.”

Keith tears his eyes away from the pod to glare at Lance, who only grins back, toothy and too big for his face. Then he falls back and gets comfortable on the cot, leaving Keith to keep on counting minutes.

At five minutes out, Allura walks in, “just to check that she’s still on schedule,” and doesn’t leave after tapping at the screen for several seconds and humming contentedly.

Three minutes, and Coran and Shiro come in together, neither bothering with any excuse.

Hunk bursts in with two minutes to go. “Is she awake yet?” he asks excitedly, barely slowing down when he notices that the crowd standing around does not include Pidge. He jogs over to them and wraps an arm around Shiro, carrying on a conversation all by himself about some project he can’t wait to show off to Pidge. Keith keeps his eyes on the pod.

“Hey,” Lance says, using Hunk’s loud voice as cover so only Keith can hear what he’s saying. “Hang back a moment when she comes out, okay? Hunk really needs a hug.”

Keith frowns. “I…” He thinks about what argument he really wants to make. “I can hug.”

Lance gives him a look that clearly questions that ability. “Maybe, but not without scolding her. Give her a minute to adjust before you chew her out for every little thing you _know_ she won’t remember right away.”

“I’m not gonna do that,” Keith grumbles.

“Just like you wouldn’t lecture an unconscious person in the middle of a high-stakes rescue mission?”

Keith’s jaw clenches. “It was a tense situation, Lance.”

“They were _shooting_ at us, _Keith_.”

“Whatever,” Keith says under his breath, because Allura is looking over curiously and he still suspects that the shape of her ears means better hearing than a human, though she always denies eavesdropping.

Zero minutes, and the room holds its breath, but these things aren’t always 100% accurate so Keith starts counting up ticks one-two-three until the pod beeps gently and slides open.

The plan was: Keith was supposed to be there to protect _her_.

  
  
  


“How’s the download coming, Pidge?”

“38%.” Her voice was muffled into the keyboard as she bent low, but the words came in clear through the comm in Keith’s ear. “Lance, Shiro, are you out?”

“Uh, you can hear all these laser blasts, right?”

“We’re almost there,” Shiro said, slightly out of breath. “Got held up in a hallway, 100 meters out.”

“Okay, I’m reprogramming their emergency defense systems to target Galra. Give me a minute.”

There was a frenzy of typing behind him, but Keith kept his eyes on the door, fingers tapping anxiously against his leg. He hated waiting for a fight that might never even come.

“Hey, guys?” Hunk said from the cockpit of his lion. “We’re starting to push it out here, so sooner would be better than later if we could get some extra firepower to—”

“Clear!” Lance shouted as the sound of blasting faded out in the background. He whooped loudly. “We’re comin’, Hunk.”

Keith’s fingers tapped faster. “Pidge?”

“71%,” she replied quickly. “Almost…”

The door slid open, and Keith’s fingers stilled. “Almost,” he repeated under his breath. Not close enough. “And now would be a great time to have those defense systems on our side.” He drew and activated his bayard in a single motion, running for the line of sentries pouring into the room.

Pidge swore. “I’ve got this, Keith, thirty seconds!”

Thirty seconds was a long time in a fight, but there was only one entrance, bottlenecked easily by his quick positioning, and the soldiers had trouble getting a shot off in the small, crowded space. It was perfect for Keith, his blade slicing through one after the other. He just had to hold them off.

“Almost got it, get ready to run.”

As soon as she spoke, several small drones dropped from the ceiling, targetting systems alight. Finally.

Keith spared half a glance over his shoulder, which was the only reason he caught the look of confusion on Pidge’s face. “No, that wasn’t—” He felt an impact deep in his chest and missed the rest.

“Keith!”

He missed the fall, too, and came back to himself on the floor, already surrounded by the sentries in however much time he’d spent unaware. He could hear fighting — that had to be Pidge, and he tried to push himself up to help her, but his body only jittered and shook, skin buzzing in the aftermath of what must have been electric shock.

Shiro was yelling in his ear, but not at him. “Lance, go! Help Hunk outside. I’m going back for them.”

He was having trouble sorting out one sound from another, wasn’t sure if he heard a crash or just felt the impact of a body slamming into his side. He willed it to move. It didn’t. The shouting was softer.

“Pidge, Keith, _answer me_. I’m coming…”

  
  
  


“So, did you guys get the files?”

“Hmm?” Keith glances up from the food in front of him — he’s the only one actually eating. The others are mostly waiting for Pidge to finish her own bowl so they can push theirs in front of her. There’s a certain amount of hovering going on around the table, where they all migrated as soon as enough hugs had been exchanged that food became the new top priority. Coran has positioned himself four inches from Pidge’s shoulder. “What files?”

She rolls her eyes. “The files we were after in the first place. The ones we went in for, duh.”

Lance snaps his fingers after a moment, leaning a little closer across the table. “Oh, those. We kinda figured they were a loss. Uh, we couldn’t get your computer back, sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s okay.” She makes a face. “Well, not _okay_ , but not your fault. I’d like to have a word with certain Galra about touching my things, the next time I get a chance. Anyway, we might’ve lost the hard copy, but there was a back-up link to transfer the files to the castle’s systems. I’m just not sure how much of it might’ve gone through before I got…” She twirls a finger through the air. “Interrupted.”

There’s a brief, awkward pause as everyone attempts to ignore the words she didn’t use. Hunk coughs. He’s standing even closer than Coran; they practically had to pry him off Pidge.

Shiro’s the one who saves them. “Uh, I didn’t think to check. Allura?”

“It… might have come through the cortex during the battle?” Allura frowns, thinking back. “There was a lot of confusion at the time. I suppose I could go back and look for it.”

“Great.” Pidge stands, pushing away her half-full bowl. “Let’s go.”

Immediately, the entire room erupts in protest.

“You didn’t even finish your lunch!”

“I’m sure I can handle it on my own, and I will inform you if I find anything useful.”

“C’mon, sit back down. You can afford a break right now.”

“The optimal healing regimen includes three vargas of rest after leaving the pod.”

“Just take it slow, Pidge.”

Keith is the only one doesn’t bother trying, because it won’t make any difference.

“ _Guys_.” She silences them all with a word, taking a step back from the group and holding her hands out in front of her like she’s expecting them to physically sit her back in the chair, which is not an irrational concern. She huffs a little, smiling. “Seriously? I’m talking about walking up to the bridge and messing around with the computers for an hour or two, _not_ running a marathon.”

Shiro relents instantly, because, Keith thinks, of _course_ he does. “Just a hour then, alright? It’s not like we’re in a rush to get the information today.”

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Fine. Come with me and set a timer, then.” She leads the way out of the room, most of the crowd following after her.

Keith doesn’t even notice that Lance has stayed behind until he feels a hand on his shoulder. He shrugs it off, staring at the empty doorway. “So we’re just gonna let her pretend everything’s fine, huh?” There’s a weird sensation in his chest, like the phantom tingle of electricity.

“I guess.”

“That’s not… that’s not right. That’s fucked.”

Lance grimaces. “I know, man. I was the one who found her, remember? She’s _not_ fine.”

  
  
  


He woke up stiff. Stiff, but inexplicably energized, like the several thousand volts of energy that had taken him down were still running through his veins. It was enough that Keith’s first instinct was to shoot up onto his feet, but his limbs didn’t respond at the same rate. He sat up jerkily, propping himself up with arms that tingled with dual energy and weariness. Fuck, it was cold here.

_Fuck_ , where _was_ here? Where was he — they — _Pidge_.

He looked around as quickly as he could, which wasn’t very quick at all, since his body wasn’t twisting properly at its joints and he had to spin himself around on his butt just to get a look over his shoulder. He registered a small room with a door and no visible hostiles before he spotted the room’s other occupant. Luckily, she lay only an arm’s reach away.

Unluckily, she was unconscious.

“Pidge,” he breathed, spiraling into a minor panic that was only partially relieved by the sight of her chest rising and falling steadily beneath her armor. Fuck, there was blood. He patted at her cheek, first gently and then not so gently. “Pidge, c’mon, time to get up.”

Finally, she groaned and twisted weakly away from his hand. He only moved it down to her shoulder, shaking insistently but lightly, since he wasn’t sure what might be hurt.

“Open your eyes, Pidge.”

She blinked up at him. “Keith?” Good, that was good. He didn’t try to make her sit up; the gash on her forehead had already begun to bleed sluggishly, agitated by the small movements. They had to deal with that as soon as possible, Keith realized. He had no idea how long they’d been out, how much blood she might have lost. The wound was too large to close properly on its own, stretching into her hairline. It needed stitches, or, since they didn’t have that right now, at least a bandage. “Where the fuck are we?”

“You don’t remember?” Keith moved in closer, trying to get a good look at her pupils. How hard had they hit her?

Pidge glared at his attention. “I remember everything up until the point where I was _unconscious_. I know where we _were_ ; I want to know where we _are_.”

“Oh.” He sat back. “A cell, I guess. It doesn’t have a window.”

” “Guards outside?”

“I checked on you first. Whoa!” He grabbed her shoulder, probably a little harder than he meant to, when she tried to sit up. “I’ll check, okay? Your head is bleeding. Don’t touch it.”

She did so anyway, a reflex, and hissed as her fingers found the gash. After a moment of grumbling complaint, she turned to Keith. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he answered immediately, but a quick self-inventory guided by Pidge’s skeptical look proved it more or less true. There was a large, black singe across the chest of his suit from the shot that had rendered him useless and his arms felt bruised all over, but none of that worried him as much as a head wound. A bandage, then. He glanced down at his suit, impressively useful in a fight but not something from which he could rip a strip of fabric.

“You don’t look okay.” Pidge was still frowning skeptically at him. It probably would have carried more weight had there not been blood running down between her eyes.

“I’m fine.” He pointed a finger in her face. “ _You_ need a bandage.”

She patted herself down dramatically, raising an eyebrow at his request. “Fresh out.”

It was a mistake, Keith realized, not to carry supplies on their persons. They had emergency kits in the lions, but that wasn’t helping right now. They had their bayards, but of course those had been taken while they were unconscious. He trailed his eyes down the body of his suit, thinking ruefully of all the places he could have strapped on even a small pouch of water or a thin, folded blanket. His fingers landed on his boot, and he drew in a sharp breath. _No way._

Hurriedly, like it might disappear if he didn’t reach it fast enough, Keith squirmed his fingers under the lip of his boot and pulled out the blade that had been stuffed inside along his ankle. He heard Pidge gasp. “What the—”

They stared at it, wrapped in a dark cloth to protect his leg from sharp edges and nearly unbelievable in its presence. How the hell had the Galra missed this? Had they just grabbed the bayards and left, assuming a paladin would rely on no other weapon? The mistake was thoughtless, but not impossible.

He took a deep breath. First thing’s first. He unwrapped the covering and set the knife carefully on the ground, eyes lingering on the insignia that stood out against the blade. Pidge’s eyes shot up to the high corners of the room as Keith shifted his leg over the knife to hide it, just in case. Cameras were unlikely in a cell like this, but they couldn’t afford to assume. Focusing on the cloth as if that was their only stroke of luck, he ripped it into a couple of strips and then leaned in close to see if he could do anything to clean Pidge’s wound without water.

She hissed and scowled and made him help her sit against the wall, but with the makeshift bandage wrapped thickly around her head, Pidge looked… well, worse, in some ways, but also less like she was about to fall apart. So that was something. Keith’s hand wandered back to the blade beneath his thigh; he felt a bone-deep instinct to hold on. It was their best line of defense against their captors, and more than that, it was _his_.

“Okay,” Pidge said. “Now we _have_ to check for guards.”

Keith nodded and stood to place his ear flat against the door, checking for any sounds that might make it past the thick slab of metal. He took shallow breaths, unwilling to disturb the silence, until he heard footsteps.

“There’s the rotation.” He kept listening as the footsteps grew steadily louder and then faded away. There were no words exchanged, which was either professional discipline or a sign that there was no stationary guard at their door to greet. He raised an eyebrow to Pidge, who shifted a little to better cover the knife and then nodded.

That secured, Keith rammed his fist against the door three times. “Hey! Hey, assholes, talk to me!” Before he was even finished yelling, his ear was back against the metal. He wasn’t expecting a real response, but he listened for any shuffling, grumbling, maybe an annoyed complaint between guards. Nothing. It wasn’t a guarantee, but most Galra soldiers were reactive enough that he probably would’ve heard _something_.

“Safe enough, I guess.” He kept his voice low anyway, just in case. He moved back to the wall and crouched down beside Pidge so they could talk quietly. “Rotation’s gotta be at least two or three minutes apart; I can get a better count later.”

“Shouldn’t be more than ten, unless they’re short-staffed. Here.” Pidge slid the knife back his way, and Keith took it gratefully. “So?”

He looked up at her. “So?”

“You’ve got a weapon,” she pointed out, “ _so_ , you got a plan to go with it?”

Keith snorted. “I’m the making-it-up-as-I-go guy. Not a planner.”

“Where’s Shiro when you need him?”

“ _Not_ here, thank God.”

Pidge winced. “Yeah. Fair.”

With a sigh, Keith glanced down at the knife once again. A weapon was only as good as the person wielding it, he knew that. If it had just been himself on the line, he wouldn’t be hesitating, but… “Do you think we should wait?”

“Wait?” Pidge gave him an odd look. “For what?”

“For a better opportunity.” He waved a hand at the door, at Pidge’s forehead. “For when we know more, and when we’re sure you’re okay, and—”

“I’m okay,” Pidge interrupted.

“When you’re _better_ than okay, then.”

Pidge closed her mouth, then her eyes, and Keith knew better than to interrupt her thought process. He ran his fingers along the edge of the knife and told himself he could hold back for as long as it took to do this right, he _could_. He did this until Pidge spoke again.

“We can’t assume we’re going to _get_ any better than this. We don’t know when they’re planning to feed us, or what they’ll do when they finally pay us a visit. For all we know, that door won’t open for three days, or maybe it’ll open in five minutes and they’ll decide we’re safer off kept in separate rooms now that we’re awake. This is the best set of circumstances we _know_ we’ll have, so let’s use them.”

“Alright,” Keith said. He was disinclined to argue. “Then we need a plan.”

  
  
  


It’s not like Keith means to eavesdrop, it’s just that he hasn’t been sleeping well lately and so he finds himself wandering around the castle at odd hours of the night. They happen to be the same sort of hours that other people choose for important conversations, apparently.

He hears Shiro’s voice echoing out from the hanger and kind of… gravitates toward it on instinct. It’s something he’s always done, more or less. The past few days, definitely more.

Then he hears Pidge, and stops right before he hits the doorway.

“...want to try hooking it up through Green. If she can bounce the signal, it has a way better chance of getting through, no matter what kind of barriers the Galra have up.”

“You can do that in the morning, can’t you?”

“I mean, I could do it ten years from now, too, but that seems less useful.”

Keith hears Shiro sigh. He considers walking away, or walking into the room to actually say hello, but it’s nice to hear their voices, especially when they’re not talking about anything important, and he’s pretty tired, and if he just… slides right down the wall outside the door he can rest his head against the frame and close his eyes and listen…

“You have to take better care of yourself, Pidge.”

“Says the man who is also awake and fully dressed nowhere near his bed. Noted.” There are a few beeps and the sound of typing as Pidge, presumably, ignores Shiro’s advice and carries on with her modifications.

“That’s different. You’re healing. Your body needs the energy.”

“Oh my God. I got out of the pod, like, more than a week ago? You know how well those things work; you’ve been in them before. Can you even see a mark on my forehead anymore?”

You can, Keith knows, but only if you’re looking for it, or very close to her face. Altean medicine is excellent. The scar won’t fade any more than it already has, but it’s hardly disfiguring.

Shiro switches tactics. “You’re having nightmares.”

“See, the problem is you have no proof of that one way or the other. You’re just trying to trick me into admitting it, and I’m not Lance.”

“You did… kind of just admit it, though.”

“On purpose. That's different.”

_Now_ Keith should leave. This is the kind of thing people aren’t supposed to listen to without permission. On the other hand, this is also the exact conversation he’s been trying and failing to have with Pidge for days, the conversation he’d begged Shiro to try having instead, because maybe he’ll have better luck. Also, who on this ship really expects more than the bare minimum of social nicety from him at this point? They know what he’s about.

“If you want to talk about it—” Shiro starts cautiously, but Pidge cuts him off.

“Look, I appreciate it, but it’s nothing new; it’s just an occupational hazard of being in the middle of a war. Do you think there’s anyone on this ship who _doesn't_ have nightmares? Psychology is a bitch.”

“Maybe we should be having weekly group therapy, then.”

Keith makes a face, and Pidge laughs. “Oh shit, _please_ let me be there to see the look on Keith’s face when you suggest that.”

Hey.

“I’m serious.”

“Yeah, okay. Why don’t you sleep on it and then tell me you still think it’s a good idea in the morning. I’ll be waiting over here with Green.”

“Pidge…” Shiro protests over the clacking of the keyboard that has started up again.

“If you really want me to sleep you have to let me get _started_ on this, Shiro, because I’m not going to bed until I’ve at least compiled the Trojan horse.”

“Katie,” Shiro says, and Keith doesn’t even know what it means (a nickname?), but Pidge obviously does because she shuts up immediately. “We’re going to talk about this.”

“...Fine. But you’re cheating, and I’m totally pulling the first-name privilege card next time _you’re_ shaking in the kitchen at 3am.”

Shiro hums an agreement, and Keith should have left. He really should have left. Disregard for social norms or no, this is _not for him_. He tells himself this, and doesn’t move.

“So the nightmares, huh?”

“Yes, but not just that,” Shiro says. “You’re not talking to us, you’re not sleeping well, you haven’t given yourself a break since you woke up. You don’t take care of yourself.”

“Apparently that’s your job.”

“I’m not always there.” Shiro sounds upset, now, which means he’s still not done beating himself up over that. “You need to be able to stop and think about yourself when no one else is doing it for you.”

Keith winces, a twinge of guilt at the implication that _he_ wasn’t someone there to think about Pidge. But that isn’t what Shiro means. It isn’t.

“I do,” Pidge insists, and Shiro must give her a hell of a look because she’s more defensive as she continues. “I _do_ , Shiro, but being captured by the enemy isn’t exactly a single-variable situation.”

“Just because you don’t have control doesn’t mean you can’t make decisions.”

“Oh, so you’re gonna judge my decisions?” Pidge scoffs. “You can’t. Like you said, you weren’t there.”

“Keith was.”

Ah, yes. He knew he would come up eventually.

“He told us what you did.”

“I didn’t _do_. _Anything_.” He can hear her harsh breathing, now, even from the hallway. “We— _we_ made a plan, and it wasn’t good enough. We fucked up. But it’s not because I wasn’t looking after myself; we were trying to get out.” Another deep breath. “Doesn’t make sense anyway, what you said about no one else doing it for me. You guys came and got us, didn’t you?”

“Not soon enough,” Shiro says, almost too softly for Keith to hear it. “That kind of thing… Look, it’s different from any other situation. Ever. Self-preservation has to be your first and _only_ priority. You can’t throw yourself in front of somebody else.”

Unexpectedly, Pidge laughs.

“What the hell are you talking about? You did it for _my_ brother.”

Fuck. Keith puts his head in his hands. Fuck, he shouldn’t have sent Shiro.

They’ve stopped talking and he doesn’t know what’s going on now, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care if they’re hugging or crying or if one of them is getting ready to hit something. It doesn’t matter; the conversation is over.

He shouldn’t have sent Shiro. Keith stands up quietly and walks away from the hanger. It’s up to him.

  
  
  


He led with a fist to the solar plexus, because that was what they’d expect. The guard brought their arms down to block, because this was what they expected. They did not expect Keith’s other hand to swing around and bury a knife in their neck.

So far, all according to plan.

They’d worked it out in whispers, taking as long as they dared until the fear of a guard opening the door before they were ready spurred them forward. It wasn’t their best plan ever, and they had no idea what was outside their cell, but Keith needed to try something. Anything. He took up position just to the side of the door and nodded to Pidge at the sound of footsteps.

She banged on the door. “Hey! Hey, we need help!” The footsteps stuttered, but kept moving. “We’re human, morons! We need water every twelve vargas or we’ll _die_. Your bosses probably want to talk to us first, don’t they?”

The guards had paused again at the word ‘die’ and now stood outside the cell, muttering back and forth. The door was too thick to hear them properly until one spoke up. “That’s not how humans work!”

“Oh yeah? You’ve met one?” Pidge paused, but there was no response. “We just need water, _please_. Look, I’ll move to the back of the room. My friend’s unconscious; he’s not going to make it much longer.” She shuffled loudly away from the door. It was an obvious trap, but the guards did not move away.

“Stay away from the door,” one of them said, and waited another minute for her to comply before opening the door. And of course, they were expecting to get hit, but they weren’t expecting the knife.

The first guard gasped wetly and crumpled, and Keith’s blade was briefly caught at an angle against the edge of their helmet. He wrenched it out half a second later, cursing the time lost.

It was too much. As he whirled toward the second guard, the butt of a gun smashed into his ribs just before he could make contact.

Keith felt a snap and a sharp pain, and found himself on the floor with no memory of hitting it. His fingers were not wrapped around the knife anymore, but before he could panic, he saw Pidge scooping it off the floor.

She rose and brought the knife forward in the same motion, jamming it up and under the guard’s chest plate. The knife twisted, and the guard slumped. Keith tried to breathe.

He lost another second and then Pidge was at his side, one hand clutching the blade and the other worming under his shoulders, trying to lever him upright. “Come on. Keith, _come on_.”

He was trying. But every breath came with a forest of needles piercing his chest, his head kept spinning like he was about to vomit, and Pidge was too small to move him easily on her own. If it had been Pidge with broken ribs, he thought, he could have just grabbed her and run.

He only made it up onto his knees by the time more guards came through the door. Pidge swore, and Keith would have too, if he’d had the breath for it. They’d blown their best chance. “Drop it,” one of the guards growled, and Pidge let the knife fall to the floor. Fuck.

She tightened her grip on him, but the guards didn’t try to pull them apart. A couple of them made their way inside the room, guns drawn, and several more stayed in the hallway, apparently waiting for something. Keith hated waiting. The long minutes passed slowly, with no movement from anyone. Blood spread out from the bodies on the floor. He thought about asking what was happening, but he wasn’t _stupid_.

It was obvious enough when a Galra walked into the room in full dress armor, no helmet in sight. Superior officer, he thought, even before the guard to the left of the door saluted with a terse address. “Captain.”

She didn’t acknowledge it, but moved to stand in front of the paladins with a look that was decidedly unimpressed. “You have an overestimated view of your own importance, but I assure you, I have other things on this ship that require my attention, so I’m only going to say this once. You will be on this ship for five cycles, and then you will be someone else’s problem. I don’t really care about you, and it would be a very bad idea to change that. Understood?”

Pidge nodded, and Keith grit his teeth and did the same.

“Good.” The Captain jerked her head toward one of the guards in the cell. “Get the bodies out of here. And don’t forget to take the—” Her eyes flicked to the knife on the floor, and she stopped abruptly.

Keith caught the moment the Captain recognized the symbol on the blade — eyes widened, mouth pressed into a thin line, hand reaching out as if to touch it — but Pidge must’ve caught it sooner, or she worked out what it meant faster than Keith could, too smart for her own good, as usual. Before Keith could even start to think of what to do next, Pidge was already speaking.

“Don’t touch that! It’s mine!” She was off the floor, already standing and snarling at the Galra before them, while Keith was still clutching his side and pathetically trying to cough.

“Yours,” the Captain echoed thoughtfully, and Keith’s blood went ice-cold. “ _How_ is it yours?”

Keith tried to answer, no, no, it wasn’t hers, it was _his_ , his fault, but Pidge took a step back that was — it was half a stumble and it almost looked like guilt or fear but it also made her hip bang solidly into his chest in a way that made him double over again to catch his breath, words lost.

“I found it,” she said, quick and weak and obviously untrue. She could lie better than this. What was she _doing_?

“I see.” The Captain turned, and spoke sharply to the guards as she walked out. “Take that one.”

“No,” Keith gasped. He stopped bracing his side to grab at Pidge with both hands, and when that didn’t work, he took a swing at one of the guards who ripped her away. That didn’t work either. “Wait,” he pleaded. “Wait, wait, it’s me, take me.”

The door slammed shut.

He didn’t see her again for three days.

  
  
  


Being part of Voltron is… different.

Voltron is so much bigger, so much grander and more complicated than any one person could ever be, that just to be a piece of it seems like it must be overwhelming. And it is, sort of. And in another way, it’s the simplest thing he’s ever done.

When Keith is the right arm of Voltron, he’s just that: an arm, nothing else. He doesn’t have to worry about planting his foot for balance; that’s Hunk’s job. He doesn’t have to think about watching his own back; that’s Shiro’s job. It’s like he’s been condensed down to his most basic self, to instinct and action.

It’s easy, even comforting, to sink back into that headspace after time apart.

“Bank left!” Shiro shouts, and Keith is aiming to clear a path before the words even finish. A short blast takes out the fighter directly in front of them and they fly wide around the rest, leaving plenty of room for a follow-up attack, a barrage of shots that cuts large holes in the formation.

Lance cheers triumphantly — preemptively, in Keith’s opinion, but he feels the joy run through their connection like liquid and grins despite himself. They _are_ doing well.

“Excellent job, paladins!” Allura congratulates them while they’re still cleaning up the last of the ships, but there’s no real challenge now, no doubt of victory. “Shall we try another one?”

Hunk groans. “Do we have to?” He sounds tired, but Keith can feel him too, and he’s alright. He can go a bit longer.

“Bring it on!” Pidge counters, radiating energy.

The last of the ships flicker out, holograms dispersed, and the castle takes only a moment to restructure the program before a new formation of fighters appears in the sky beside them, ready for battle. It’s a scenario they’ve practiced before, flying separately, but Voltron has a very different kind of maneuverability than five individual lions, and their strategy will have to change.

Allura does not give them a moment to think it through. As soon as the ships have formed, they begin to move, following each other in groups and shooting toward the lone target. Voltron is forced to run to avoid their fire.

It’s one long game of tag, after that; they can’t _stop_ running. The ships are fast and the formations are tight, and when they were five lions they were able to split focus enough to get shots in from the side, but it’s much more difficult now. Voltron may have incredible firepower, but that doesn’t matter if they can’t stop long enough to aim.

“I can’t find a way out,” Lance says, putting words to the frustration passing between them all.

“Then let’s face them head-on,” Pidge suggests. “These guys are fast but they’re not heavy hitters. We can hold for long enough to force our way through.”

It’s a good plan, Keith knows, though he feels a squirming uncertainty at the thought. Shiro is agreeing and Hunk and Lance are already adjusting their flight to follow through, so who is that coming from?

“Pidge,” Shiro calls as they turn sharply. “Shield.” And Keith figures it out a split second before everything falls apart.

In an instant — too fast for all the interconnected parts to break away properly, he’ll never fully understand that — Voltron is gone, and they’re five separate pieces drifting aimlessly away from each other. Shiro is the first one to course-correct back to individual piloting and straighten himself out, but they all take the muted blows of fake fire. Keith winces when he sees shots land on the Green Lion’s armor, even though he knows they’re not real.

“Paladins?” Allura says through the comms as the simulation grinds to a halt, hologram ships frozen in place. “Are you alright?”

There’s a chorus of confused affirmatives from everyone but Keith, because he’s… done, honestly. He shouldn’t be, but he is, and he’s going back inside now, fuck this.

“Keith?” Shiro prompts, when he doesn’t respond. Keith turns around and flies straight back to the hanger. “Keith!”

  
  
  


The one thing he had in excess was water. He had no plan and no partner, but he had enough clean water to stay hydrated, wash his face, even to polish some of the smudges from his armor if he cared enough to bother.

The guards must have taken Pidge’s words to heart, or at least they didn’t want to risk them being true, because the door cracked open every few hours so that plastic packets of water could be dropped inside. He hadn’t tried attacking again, because he had no weapon and also because these guards had clearly learned from their dead coworkers and pointed their guns ahead of them, but he asked every time where his friend was, when she would be back.

He never got an answer.

He kept two full packets of water tucked into the back corner of the cell, for Pidge. When she came back, she would probably need them.

Wherever she was, they had to be giving her water there too, right? It wasn’t easy to mark the passage of time in this static environment, but he was sure it must have been a couple of days. They were wanted alive; he knew that.

But the longer she was gone, the less likely, his anxious mind whispered, it was that she would come back. Why not keep them separated, after all? The ship must have plenty of cells. What he needed was a plan. Another one, a better one.

The only thing he had in excess was water.

Given enough time, he told himself, he would have thought of some way to use it. (And a monkey at a typewriter would eventually crap out a novel, but not soon enough to do any good.) Either way, he didn’t get to find out, because his teammates did the work for him and showed up — thank God — before he got desperate enough to start begging for information.

Actually, when he first heard the rapid footsteps coming down the hall a full minute later than the usual rotation, his first assumption was that something must have disrupted the guards’ schedule, and Keith could work with that. They’d gotten distracted, and if he could figure out— And then, unexpectedly, the footsteps skidded to a halt and the door flew open.

It was such a departure from the slow, cautious, weapons-first approach he’d grown used to lately that Keith threw himself back against the wall and raised his fists on instinct. He registered who was in the doorway from behind a fully defensive position.

“Keith! Whoa, it’s okay, it’s just us!” Hunk raised his own hands — and gun — to match him. At least Allura was smart enough not to drop her guard just to placate him; she held her weapon firm in front of her, facing the far end of the hall, though her gaze wandered toward him.

“I know that,” Keith snapped, feeling stupid in a way that made absolutely no sense. He dropped his stance, made himself assume a consciously vulnerable position so they’d know he was fine, and moved on to the important issues. “Where’s Pidge?”

He might not have caught Hunk’s hesitation, if he hadn’t been watching for it. “Shiro and Lance are getting her. We’re meeting back at the ship, c’mon.”

Keith didn’t move. “Let me talk to them.” He held out a hand for the comm.

“Keith,” Allura snapped. “We have to leave. Now.” Her tone was sharp and firm, the command of a born leader, brooking no argument. Keith stood still and made one anyway.

“Hunk.”

Hunk looked away, off down the corridor. Keith pushed, sensing weakness. “Give me your comm.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Hunk said finally, reaching to the side of his helmet to pull out a small device. He held it out in the hallway, like someone trying to get a dog to come for a treat. “But we’re going.”

Keith strode forward and grabbed it, speaking immediately into the comm. “Did you find her?”

Shiro’s voice came through the other end, clipped and slightly out of breath. “Give us a minute.” Behind him, muffled thuds which could have been either fighting or running, and Lance’s voice briefly piping in, “Keith?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Keith said, finally allowing himself to be hustled down the corridor now that he had a line of communication. “Tell me where you are.”

This time, there was no immediate answer, and the line was quiet, though whether they had been distracted by an enemy or they just didn’t want to tell him, Keith wasn’t sure. He did catch Hunk and Allura sharing a look over his head that clearly said they planned on dragging him directly off the ship, by force if necessary. _Good luck,_ Keith thought.

“Do you know where you’re going?” He carried on over the silence, determined to incite a response. “The Captain took her, you have to look in the—”

“Hey, Keith?” Lance’s voice finally came through, tight and annoyed, as expected. “It’s really cool to hear your voice and all, glad you’re alive, etcetera, but we _really_ don’t need a backseat rescuer right now.”

“Tell me you have her, then.”

“I’ve got a location, keep your pants on, I will literally be there in five seconds, I’ll put her on if it’ll stop you from having a heart atta—” He cut off abruptly with a sharp intake of breath.

“Lance?”

“Shiro,” Lance croaked. “I need you to get here now.”

Shiro’s line crackled on. “Thirty seconds, I just need to—”

“ _Now._ ”

Allura and Hunk were still moving beside him, still jogging forward down the hall, but their eyes were distant, their focus on the awful hang of silence through the comm as they waited for the next words to come.

“Is she…” Keith couldn’t finish. He clutched his comm between both hands, counted ticks one-two-three until he heard a reply.

Someone on the other end of the line breathed out. “Yeah, I’ve got her.”

  
  
  


Keith doesn’t make it very far. He’s barely out the door of the hanger, tossing his helmet carelessly aside and heading… he doesn’t know where, _away_ , when another lion lands hastily, awkwardly beside his own. Then there’s another, and voices follow him down the hall, but he pays no attention to them until a hand falls on his shoulder and spins him around.

“Keith, _don’t_ walk away from me!” Pidge is majorly pissed, glaring up at him from a full foot below his eyeline and she’s good at being intimidating like this, normally, but Keith is angry too and he’s pretty sure he has more right to be. “You always do this, you just go off on your own and sulk instead of letting anyone help, why can’t you just talk to us…”

And Keith laughs, high and unnatural. He’s not actually sure how the sound came out; he didn’t mean it to. “You want to talk? Bullshit.”

Pidge bristles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, let’s start with how _you’re_ feeling after getting tortured for three days,” he snaps. In the background, someone who is neither him nor Pidge makes a choked sound, and Keith registers that they have an audience. He doesn’t care.

Pidge doesn’t back down either. “That’s not— This isn’t about me.”

“Maybe it is, though,” Keith says, carrying on further and faster. Now that he’s started, he can’t stop. “Maybe it is, but you’re not the only one who’s kinda fucked up about it. Maybe I’m _pissed off_ that you decided you didn’t trust me and you just went and—”

“Didn’t trust you?” Pidge says incredulously.

“Of course not. ‘Oh, I’m Pidge, I’m the smartest person in the galaxy and I know better than anyone else so obviously I should go ahead and push myself in front of a dangerous Galra captain because _Keith can’t handle it_ and I can.’ You’re so _selfish_.”

“Selfish?” Pidge scowls. “God, I’m so sorry for looking out for you, my teammate, and trying to keep you safe.”

Keith growls low in frustration. “Well, I didn’t _want_ you to. You didn’t think I’d rather it be me?”

Pidge just scoffs. “That’s irrational.”

“It was _my knife_ —”

“Which is _exactly_ why they couldn’t ask you about it. If you went, they would have gotten something important, eventually. With me, their assumptions were all wrong, and most of the information they wanted, I couldn’t give them anyway. It was the only option that made sense, but I didn’t exactly have time to sit down with you and explain the logic.”

‘Logic.’ There it is. “You always do this.”

“Do what?” Pidge asks sharply. “ _Think?_ Someone had to.”

“You always _calculate_ ,” Keith corrects. “You think you can justify every shitty decision you make as long as the numbers come out in your favor.”

“Calling me a robot isn’t very original, you know. The kids at school figured that one out when we were eight.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“No, you’re just pissed that I made the _shitty decision_ to save your stupid life. I didn’t want you to die, okay? Is that _okay_ with you?” Her hands ball into fists at her sides as she shouts at him. The fourth finger on her left hand doesn’t quite curl far enough to match the others. It probably never will again. Keith’s vision is tunneling.

“Stop it!” Hunk says. The others have been trying to interject this whole time — ‘Hey’ or ‘Pidge!’ or ‘Calm down’ — but this is the first that breaks through. “Why are you guys yelling at each other? The whole point of this is that you love each other, so stop screaming.”

“ _Just._ ” Keith stops, sucks in a breath, starts again two notches quieter. “We’re a team, okay? You don’t have to do this on your own.”

Pidge looks uncomfortable at his words in a way that reminds Keith of another argument they had months ago, of her walking away. It makes something twist in his stomach as she speaks. “Yeah, I know. Most of the time we stick together, but that wasn’t an option this time. The options were you, or me.”

“And you decided you were less important.”

“In that moment? Yeah.”

‘ _I’ll do it again,_ ’ she doesn’t say, but Keith hears it anyway.

He remembers the trials on Krell and Pidge’s careful calculations of the strengths and weaknesses of everyone by her side. Keith had been impressed at the time. It was a little heartless, sure, but most good strategy was. She must have a file in her head for herself, too. A list of numerical statistics, the most effective ways to neutralize herself, situations that optimize her use. Her own personal breaking points.

Their world has expanded since they left Earth, and not just to the outer reaches of the universe. (What would you do if you had to choose between your best friend or your brother? Your father or ten strangers? A galaxy of civilizations or yourself?)

They’re too young for this, Keith thinks, suddenly, blindingly. It’s something he knew already, but Jesus, it’s worth saying again, that they’re all way too young.

“You can’t do that,” he tells her.

She doesn’t even bother to answer him. She can’t promise anything. They all know that.

“Next time,” he says, instead, hating himself for the compromise. “Next time you’re thinking about what’s more important, can you just remember that I give a shit? If anything happened to you…”

“We would all be lost,” Allura finishes for him.

“Yeah,” Lance agrees. “Don’t think that Grumpy Face over here would be the only one upset if you bailed on us.”

Shiro nods. “You’re important. We all are.”

Pidge looks like she wants to argue. Wants to leave. Wants to prove to everyone that she’s _right_ or at least walk it back to a stalemate before storming off, but Keith stares her down. He won’t let her. Not this time.

He gets it, though. He always preferred to walk away, too, if he couldn’t go down swinging. Not this time.

Finally, she exhales, and meets his eye without a challenge. “Okay. I’ll remember that.”

If she doesn’t, Keith will remind her. Until it’s fixed in her mind. Until it’s written on her skin.

Until it’s carved into her bones.

**Author's Note:**

> “You are a ghost. Filled with stardust, wearing the bones as the shield and the skin as the cape. Fighting every day and opening up for the new wounds in the hustle of hiding the old scars.”  
> ― Akshay Vasu


End file.
